Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to beamforming and user equipment grouping.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipments (UEs). A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station).
Some wireless communication systems may employ beamforming or spatial filtering techniques where signals are transmitted in a directional manner. Beamforming may be achieved by the selection of particular antenna elements for a transmission to achieve constructive interference in the direction of transmission. The width of the beamformed signals determine the amount of gain, at the expense of selectivity. That is, a wider beamform width reduces gain, but captures more receivers (e.g., has a wider geographical coverage area). Alternatively, a more narrow beamform signal increases gain, but reduces the amount of captured receivers (e.g., has a smaller geographical coverage area).